I know case studies are important, but it would be nice to see more statisical evidence of the impact of bad IP policy in addition to anecdotal.
Frankly, if you can't quantitative arguments against certain aspects of IP policy, you haven't looked very hard.
I'm interested in copyright, particularly term extensions, so I'll give you a link to
something from that area. It's an amicus brief for Eldred v. Ashcroft, which challenged the constitutionality of a retroactive extension of the copyright term. This particular brief was signed by 17 well-known economists, including five Nobel laureates.
One of the main problems with a lot of IP policy is that it simply isn't based on evidence - it's based on a "common sense" assumption that more protection = more innovation; an assumption that is simply wrong. Those who seek increased protection should shoulder the burden of proving why, at the expense of the general public, they should be handed a monopoly; but our current policymaking climate doesn't require them to do so.
The known value is an reference alcohol unit pre-applied prior to each test as a calibration, to establish that the machine is accurate. The unit is equivalent to a reading obtained in medical studies show to prove the average person intoxicated. This calibration is noted on your Breathalyzer card, along with your results (usually 2, spaced an hour apart, with different reference units), which will be noted on the complaint, and included in the arrest report.
Good to know, but still doesn't really address the issue. Here's why.
When my father was still practicing, he had a digital scale that was miscalibrated. Up to about 60 lbs, it would give fairly accurate values (maybe within 1/2 lb), but above that, it became increasingly inaccurate, consistently underweighing. Thus, even if you had weighed two reference weights of 30 and 60 lbs, you would have thought that the scale was properly calibrated.
Secondly, if the unit is designed to show that the average person is intoxicated, how can it be uniformly applied to people of different sexes, different weights, etc.? I suppose they might have several units for this purpose...
In any case, my point still stands - they are trying to determine an unknown value - your BAC. They may be able to measure a known value with the device, but your BAC remains an unknown value. Ideally, there would be another method of measurement which could produce the same results.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, if you really are intoxicated, it's probably quite obvious, and the case shouldn't rest on the results of the device. If, however, the only evidence available is the results of this device, they'd better make damn sure it's accurate. A great way to do that would be to test it on human subjects whose BAC is known by another test - and TFA specifically says that this particular machine hasn't been tested on human subjects, only on simulations.
In court documents, Deputy Pima County Attorney Robin Schwartz said the defense attorneys' requests "bear all the hallmarks of a fishing expedition."
Common sense shows that people rely on software and source-code information for everyday matters, Schwartz argued. One just looks at the results to know if something works or not.
Schwartz used electricity as an example.
"No one . . . needs to see a schematic of wiring to know that when he flips the switch on the wall, the light will come on," Schwartz said.
Um, that assumes that you are comparing the result with a known value. The point of a breathalyzer is to determine an unknown value.
Unless of course this attorney is saying that they already know the accused are drunk, in which case the breathalyzer is redundant.
Kohl said he is particularly concerned that all four of the companies appear to have adopted identical price increases at nearly the same time. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace," he wrote.
I wonder if things will get as far as a price-fixing investigations?
Actually, there is no way to give up your copyright, either. At least, no easy way. That's why public domain licenses exist. You still own the copyright, but license it with no strings attached.
This is simply not true (at least in the U.S.). Please do not spread this misinformation.
First, there is an easy way to renounce your copyright and place a work in the public domain. You simply declare that that work is in the public domain; e.g., by a statement saying "This work is in the public domain."
But don't just take my word for it:
It is well settled that rights gained under the Copyright Act may be abandoned. But abandonment of a right must be manifested by some overt act indicating an intention to abandon that right. See Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 279 F.2d 100, 104 (9th Cir. 1960).
Micro-Star v. Formgen Inc., 154 F.3d 1107 (9th Cir. 1998).
FYI, that is from Judge Kozinski's decision, not just some random judge.
The reason people claim it's impossible to do this is because they are afraid that someone, having placed something in the public domain, might come back and claim copyright to it, and that a court might uphold it. That may very well be an issue, but it certainly doesn't prevent you from renouncing your copyright - it simply means that some people might still refrain from using it.
Secondly, there's no such thing as a "public domain license." The very idea of the public domain means that the work is free for anyone to use in any way, without any license. You're obviously referring to copyright licenses like Creative Commons, which seek to provide an expansive, non-exclusive license along with a work. In these cases, you do still retain copyright, but this is not the same thing as the public domain.
Like it nor not, J. K. Rowling created the series, and decided to turn it into a commercial enterprise. It's well within her moral and legal rights to make sure a bunch of idiots don't cling to her coattails trying to milk dollars from a popular franchise that they have no legitimate claim to.
Well, the judge seems to think there's room for at least some idiots to cling to her coattails and milk dollars from a franchise they have no legitimate claim to. From Groklaw:
Notwithstanding Rowling's public statements of her intention to publish her own encyclopedia, the market for reference guides to the Harry Potter works is not exclusively hers to exploit or license, no matter the commercial success attributable to the popularity of the original works. See Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d at 1377 ("The author of 'Twin Peaks' cannot preserve for itself the entire field of publishable works that wish to cash in on the 'Twin Peaks' phenomenon"). The market for reference guides does not become derivative simply because the copyright holder seeks to produce or license one.
I.e., no, it's not within her legal rights to prevent other people from making money off her work. There are reasons for why this case wasn't fair use, but that doesn't speak to the issue of people riding her wave as a whole.
I recently did some research that had me looking in the NYT's article archive. Thankfully, it was in the 1900-1920 period, so all the articles I wanted to access were free.
However, if I had been doing research in a later time period, say 1930-1940, I would have had to pay for access to the articles (well, probably not me - I'm sure we have institutional access, but someone would have had to pay).
Google seems to be offering this free of charge to viewers, at least initially. It sounds like they've obtained the rights, or are working in partnerships with publishers. I wonder if NYT will continue to require payment for access to some of their archives?
Yes, I too blame this problem on the "entitlement attitude."
It's not like people running out of retirement money has anything to do with people living much longer than in the past, or the skyrocketing cost of health care.
Heh, I hadn't noticed the link to the English version up top, all I saw were the Spanish versions of the laws down below:-) Thanks for being a good sport about it.
Makes me wonder about two things:
How does copyright interact with public information? Who knows what the deal in Venezuela is with public records, but if I requests e-mails from a state agency in the U.S. under a public information act, would I be allowed to distribute them, even though they are copyrighted? (This is actually kind of personally important, because I have a bunch of documents requested under a public information act that are on a public web server)
Second, those e-mails would be copyrighted under Venezuelan law, not U.S. law... but because of the U.S's international agreements, could Wikileaks still get in legal trouble for violating foreign copyrights?
(And if you think that that's a bad analogy, no, it's not even just an analogy: everything you write, even emails, is automatically copyrighted by you. So essentially they're selling something wholesale, on which that guy and everyone who's ever sent him an email, has a copyright.)
Funny, I didn't realize Venezuela's copyright laws worked in exactly the same way as the U.S's.
Perhaps you'd like to use a source to substantiate that claim?
Sorry to give you a hard time about it, but I think it's very important for people to realize that copyright law is not the same throughout the entire world.
So you want digital data, but on a medium that will last? Just include a bunch of punch cards (bonus points if they're made of something that lasts longer than paper)! Or print the data out on good quality paper. Make sure to include instructions on how to decode it, too.
It's really not that unclear. It seems like you just don't like what it says.
See this page for some examples of why it really is unclear. Software is also not the first instance of the "licensed and not sold" argument, and the argument hasn't fared so well in the past. See thesetwo cases, which are linked from the first article, for examples. They're actually quite interesting. Both of them deal with reselling, though, so none of us really know how the courts will handle other actions by a purchaser.
So your argument is that anything that's not done "in general" is illegal?
No. My argument is that when someone sells you a product, they should no longer have the right to tell you how you can use that product, period. And it shouldn't matter if that product is a desk lamp, a game controller, or a software program.
Right, because that's what it's built for, and that's how it's licensed. So of course you would expect that.
Well, I just looked at my Windows XP EULA, and it doesn't say anything about what sort of hardware I'm permitted or not permitted to install it on.
On the other hand, imagine if Microsoft suddenly decided to only license XP for use on the computers of certain manufacturers (say, ones who happened to pay MS a little fee). Attorneys general would be all over them.
Well Playstations come with one controller, and Sony doesn't openly permit you to use their controller on other game systems. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it's closer than the metaphors others are using for this issue.
Sony also doesn't explicitly state that you are not allowed to use their controller on another system, like Apple does. And if Sony did say something like that, people would simply laugh, because it's as ridiculous as it sounds.
No, that's just it-- when you buy your copy of OSX, you're buying (a) the physical disk and (b) the license for the copyrighted material. You can do whatever you want with the physical disk, but if you want to copy the copyrighted material, you have to abide by the license. That is the issue in its entirety, and all the rest of this jibber jabber is the red herring.
As I said before, the law is currently unclear on what exactly you are buying when you purchase software (e.g., a product, or whether you are just being licensed the software. There have been different rulings in different courts.
Well the use of an operating system requires some sort of hardware to run it on. Using computer hardware requires some kind of software. They are certainly connected. Further, Dell doesn't sell their computers without some kind of OS, even if it's Linux or FreeDOS.
Obviously an OS is related to computer hardware, but the point is that in general, if an OS is sold by itself, the purchase and use of that OS is not contingent upon the purchase of hardware from a specific manufacturer. The purchase and use of Windows is not contingent upon the purchase of a Dell. Of course you need some kind of hardware, but you could purchase that hardware from any manufacturer, or even build it yourself.
On the other hand, Apple sells OS X by itself, but claims that the purchase and use of OS X is contingent upon the purchase of hardware from a specific manufacturer - Apple.
Regardless, if Microsoft started selling XBoxes without controllers, would that suddenly make it illegal for Sony to sell Playstations with controllers bundled?
As I said before, the controller / game console analogy isn't a good one, because they are more closely related than an OS and a particular computer manufacturer's product. Controllers are sold separately, but you don't expect to be able to buy a controller and use it with any game system. But when you buy Windows, you do expect to able to install it on any (compatible) computer.
For that matter, imagine someone other than Sony created a device that could use Playstation controllers. Barring any patent infringement issues with the design of the device, it's not as if Sony could say "You may only use Playstation controllers if you have purchased a Playstation."
You can legally buy and use X however you want as long as you bought it. You can buy OSX and use it as a very expensive coaster. Of course, if you want to copy the software contained on X, then you're going to need a license, and the copyright holder gets to restrict copying in certain ways. That's the current law, as far as I know.
That's just it, though. Apple is saying you can't use OS X however you want. I think the whole software licensing issue is a red herring, anyway. The issue here isn't about copyright, it's about the limits that a seller can place on their product after it has been sold. Did I buy it or not? Do I own it or not? Do they get to tell me what I can do with it, or not?
There are all sorts of licensing agreements that claim you can't resell the software. I don't think there is a currently a clear consensus regarding whether software is licensed or sold, but most of these licenses are just attempts to defraud consumers of their rights to use or resell the product they have purchased.
They are related in the same way that Dells and Windows XP are related. At least, I'm guessing that's the argument that Psystar would use. Namely, there's no reason that the purchase (and use) of one should depend upon the purchase of the other.
Macs are being sold both together and separately, as is the case with both of my prior examples.
This is the problem - OS X is sold separately from Macs, but Apple claims that you cannot use OS X separately from a Mac.
Didn't you just say their legal problem was because they were selling them together?
I said that their problem was that they are selling X and Y separately, but claiming that in order to legally use X, you must have bought Y.
As long as you're not a monopoly, it's perfectly legal for you to engage in anticompetitive behavior, as long as you're complying with all of the other normal business regulations.
Some of those very regulations regulate against anticompetitive behavior, e.g., tying. For an example, see the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Tying only applies when the products are non-related (which excludes both your razor and Playstation examples) and when they are being sold together (which also excludes both your examples - they are sold together, but not exclusively, you can purchase both razor blades and controllers separately).
Wikipedia gives the hypothetical example of Bic trying to tie the sale of pens to lighters - they're unrelated, so it doesn't make any sense. Also according to WP, tying by itself can be illegal, even without a monopoly (that makes sense to me - why would you want to wait to claim tying until a company became a monopoly).
Seems to me that the Apple case is even further complicated by the fact that they are selling the products separately (at least, you can purchase OS X without a computer - forget about the licensing issues for the moment). So Apple is selling OS X, but making the right to use it conditional upon the purchase of a computer from Apple.
Prima facie, I can see how that could be argued to be a de facto form of tying. Furthermore, the method Apple uses to enforce the condition is the software license, which is of questionable legality in the first place.
I don't think the argument is that Apple is a monopoly, but rather that they're engaging in anticompetitive behavior - tying the purchase of one product (the OS) to another (the computer).
I don't see how Apple could ever be compelled to provide support on any hardware it doesn't deem acceptable. If they were to lose, maybe the outcome will be that if you sell an OS, you don't have the right to restrict its use to particular hardware.
Of course they're not obligated to continue offering a service (at least probably not in this case - there are some services companies are required to offer in exchange for the right to do business - think 911, or whatever the emergency number in your area is).
On the other hand, if they're going to be jerks towards their customers, people are also not obligated to continue patronizing them.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, if you want to view the subcommittee hearing, here's a link to it.
Also, don't /. it, I want to be able to watch it later tonight!
I know case studies are important, but it would be nice to see more statisical evidence of the impact of bad IP policy in addition to anecdotal.
Frankly, if you can't quantitative arguments against certain aspects of IP policy, you haven't looked very hard.
I'm interested in copyright, particularly term extensions, so I'll give you a link to something from that area. It's an amicus brief for Eldred v. Ashcroft, which challenged the constitutionality of a retroactive extension of the copyright term. This particular brief was signed by 17 well-known economists, including five Nobel laureates.
One of the main problems with a lot of IP policy is that it simply isn't based on evidence - it's based on a "common sense" assumption that more protection = more innovation; an assumption that is simply wrong. Those who seek increased protection should shoulder the burden of proving why, at the expense of the general public, they should be handed a monopoly; but our current policymaking climate doesn't require them to do so.
The known value is an reference alcohol unit pre-applied prior to each test as a calibration, to establish that the machine is accurate. The unit is equivalent to a reading obtained in medical studies show to prove the average person intoxicated. This calibration is noted on your Breathalyzer card, along with your results (usually 2, spaced an hour apart, with different reference units), which will be noted on the complaint, and included in the arrest report.
Good to know, but still doesn't really address the issue. Here's why.
When my father was still practicing, he had a digital scale that was miscalibrated. Up to about 60 lbs, it would give fairly accurate values (maybe within 1/2 lb), but above that, it became increasingly inaccurate, consistently underweighing. Thus, even if you had weighed two reference weights of 30 and 60 lbs, you would have thought that the scale was properly calibrated.
Secondly, if the unit is designed to show that the average person is intoxicated, how can it be uniformly applied to people of different sexes, different weights, etc.? I suppose they might have several units for this purpose...
In any case, my point still stands - they are trying to determine an unknown value - your BAC. They may be able to measure a known value with the device, but your BAC remains an unknown value. Ideally, there would be another method of measurement which could produce the same results.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, if you really are intoxicated, it's probably quite obvious, and the case shouldn't rest on the results of the device. If, however, the only evidence available is the results of this device, they'd better make damn sure it's accurate. A great way to do that would be to test it on human subjects whose BAC is known by another test - and TFA specifically says that this particular machine hasn't been tested on human subjects, only on simulations.
In court documents, Deputy Pima County Attorney Robin Schwartz said the defense attorneys' requests "bear all the hallmarks of a fishing expedition." Common sense shows that people rely on software and source-code information for everyday matters, Schwartz argued. One just looks at the results to know if something works or not. Schwartz used electricity as an example. "No one . . . needs to see a schematic of wiring to know that when he flips the switch on the wall, the light will come on," Schwartz said.
Um, that assumes that you are comparing the result with a known value. The point of a breathalyzer is to determine an unknown value.
Unless of course this attorney is saying that they already know the accused are drunk, in which case the breathalyzer is redundant.
Kohl said he is particularly concerned that all four of the companies appear to have adopted identical price increases at nearly the same time. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace," he wrote.
I wonder if things will get as far as a price-fixing investigations?
Actually, there is no way to give up your copyright, either. At least, no easy way. That's why public domain licenses exist. You still own the copyright, but license it with no strings attached.
This is simply not true (at least in the U.S.). Please do not spread this misinformation.
First, there is an easy way to renounce your copyright and place a work in the public domain. You simply declare that that work is in the public domain; e.g., by a statement saying "This work is in the public domain."
But don't just take my word for it:
It is well settled that rights gained under the Copyright Act may be abandoned. But abandonment of a right must be manifested by some overt act indicating an intention to abandon that right. See Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 279 F.2d 100, 104 (9th Cir. 1960). Micro-Star v. Formgen Inc., 154 F.3d 1107 (9th Cir. 1998).
FYI, that is from Judge Kozinski's decision, not just some random judge.
The reason people claim it's impossible to do this is because they are afraid that someone, having placed something in the public domain, might come back and claim copyright to it, and that a court might uphold it. That may very well be an issue, but it certainly doesn't prevent you from renouncing your copyright - it simply means that some people might still refrain from using it.
Secondly, there's no such thing as a "public domain license." The very idea of the public domain means that the work is free for anyone to use in any way, without any license. You're obviously referring to copyright licenses like Creative Commons, which seek to provide an expansive, non-exclusive license along with a work. In these cases, you do still retain copyright, but this is not the same thing as the public domain.
For more information, visit http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html.
Like it nor not, J. K. Rowling created the series, and decided to turn it into a commercial enterprise. It's well within her moral and legal rights to make sure a bunch of idiots don't cling to her coattails trying to milk dollars from a popular franchise that they have no legitimate claim to.
Well, the judge seems to think there's room for at least some idiots to cling to her coattails and milk dollars from a franchise they have no legitimate claim to. From Groklaw:
Notwithstanding Rowling's public statements of her intention to publish her own encyclopedia, the market for reference guides to the Harry Potter works is not exclusively hers to exploit or license, no matter the commercial success attributable to the popularity of the original works. See Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d at 1377 ("The author of 'Twin Peaks' cannot preserve for itself the entire field of publishable works that wish to cash in on the 'Twin Peaks' phenomenon"). The market for reference guides does not become derivative simply because the copyright holder seeks to produce or license one.
I.e., no, it's not within her legal rights to prevent other people from making money off her work. There are reasons for why this case wasn't fair use, but that doesn't speak to the issue of people riding her wave as a whole.
Isn't that "enforce or lose" issue only the case for trademarks, not copyright?
I recently did some research that had me looking in the NYT's article archive. Thankfully, it was in the 1900-1920 period, so all the articles I wanted to access were free.
However, if I had been doing research in a later time period, say 1930-1940, I would have had to pay for access to the articles (well, probably not me - I'm sure we have institutional access, but someone would have had to pay).
Google seems to be offering this free of charge to viewers, at least initially. It sounds like they've obtained the rights, or are working in partnerships with publishers. I wonder if NYT will continue to require payment for access to some of their archives?
Yes, I too blame this problem on the "entitlement attitude."
It's not like people running out of retirement money has anything to do with people living much longer than in the past, or the skyrocketing cost of health care.
Uh.. why not just give directly to the Red Cross, then?
Click the link, and you'll understand.
What are you talking about? For the average user, changing the wallpaper is one of the most important functions a computer can perform!
Heh, I hadn't noticed the link to the English version up top, all I saw were the Spanish versions of the laws down below :-) Thanks for being a good sport about it.
Makes me wonder about two things:
How does copyright interact with public information? Who knows what the deal in Venezuela is with public records, but if I requests e-mails from a state agency in the U.S. under a public information act, would I be allowed to distribute them, even though they are copyrighted? (This is actually kind of personally important, because I have a bunch of documents requested under a public information act that are on a public web server)
Second, those e-mails would be copyrighted under Venezuelan law, not U.S. law... but because of the U.S's international agreements, could Wikileaks still get in legal trouble for violating foreign copyrights?
(And if you think that that's a bad analogy, no, it's not even just an analogy: everything you write, even emails, is automatically copyrighted by you. So essentially they're selling something wholesale, on which that guy and everyone who's ever sent him an email, has a copyright.)
Funny, I didn't realize Venezuela's copyright laws worked in exactly the same way as the U.S's.
Perhaps you'd like to use a source to substantiate that claim?
Sorry to give you a hard time about it, but I think it's very important for people to realize that copyright law is not the same throughout the entire world.
So you want digital data, but on a medium that will last? Just include a bunch of punch cards (bonus points if they're made of something that lasts longer than paper)! Or print the data out on good quality paper. Make sure to include instructions on how to decode it, too.
It's really not that unclear. It seems like you just don't like what it says.
See this page for some examples of why it really is unclear. Software is also not the first instance of the "licensed and not sold" argument, and the argument hasn't fared so well in the past. See these two cases, which are linked from the first article, for examples. They're actually quite interesting. Both of them deal with reselling, though, so none of us really know how the courts will handle other actions by a purchaser.
See the Clayton Act, which came after the Sherman Act, and was designed to stop anticompetitive practices before a company became a monopoly.
Only stopping anticompetitive behavior when a company is a monopoly sounds a bit like only arresting drug dealers when they become kingpins.
So your argument is that anything that's not done "in general" is illegal?
No. My argument is that when someone sells you a product, they should no longer have the right to tell you how you can use that product, period. And it shouldn't matter if that product is a desk lamp, a game controller, or a software program.
Right, because that's what it's built for, and that's how it's licensed. So of course you would expect that.
Well, I just looked at my Windows XP EULA, and it doesn't say anything about what sort of hardware I'm permitted or not permitted to install it on.
On the other hand, imagine if Microsoft suddenly decided to only license XP for use on the computers of certain manufacturers (say, ones who happened to pay MS a little fee). Attorneys general would be all over them.
Well Playstations come with one controller, and Sony doesn't openly permit you to use their controller on other game systems. It's not a perfect metaphor, but it's closer than the metaphors others are using for this issue.
Sony also doesn't explicitly state that you are not allowed to use their controller on another system, like Apple does. And if Sony did say something like that, people would simply laugh, because it's as ridiculous as it sounds.
No, that's just it-- when you buy your copy of OSX, you're buying (a) the physical disk and (b) the license for the copyrighted material. You can do whatever you want with the physical disk, but if you want to copy the copyrighted material, you have to abide by the license. That is the issue in its entirety, and all the rest of this jibber jabber is the red herring.
As I said before, the law is currently unclear on what exactly you are buying when you purchase software (e.g., a product, or whether you are just being licensed the software. There have been different rulings in different courts.
Well the use of an operating system requires some sort of hardware to run it on. Using computer hardware requires some kind of software. They are certainly connected. Further, Dell doesn't sell their computers without some kind of OS, even if it's Linux or FreeDOS.
Obviously an OS is related to computer hardware, but the point is that in general, if an OS is sold by itself, the purchase and use of that OS is not contingent upon the purchase of hardware from a specific manufacturer. The purchase and use of Windows is not contingent upon the purchase of a Dell. Of course you need some kind of hardware, but you could purchase that hardware from any manufacturer, or even build it yourself.
On the other hand, Apple sells OS X by itself, but claims that the purchase and use of OS X is contingent upon the purchase of hardware from a specific manufacturer - Apple.
Regardless, if Microsoft started selling XBoxes without controllers, would that suddenly make it illegal for Sony to sell Playstations with controllers bundled?
As I said before, the controller / game console analogy isn't a good one, because they are more closely related than an OS and a particular computer manufacturer's product. Controllers are sold separately, but you don't expect to be able to buy a controller and use it with any game system. But when you buy Windows, you do expect to able to install it on any (compatible) computer.
For that matter, imagine someone other than Sony created a device that could use Playstation controllers. Barring any patent infringement issues with the design of the device, it's not as if Sony could say "You may only use Playstation controllers if you have purchased a Playstation."
You can legally buy and use X however you want as long as you bought it. You can buy OSX and use it as a very expensive coaster. Of course, if you want to copy the software contained on X, then you're going to need a license, and the copyright holder gets to restrict copying in certain ways. That's the current law, as far as I know.
That's just it, though. Apple is saying you can't use OS X however you want. I think the whole software licensing issue is a red herring, anyway. The issue here isn't about copyright, it's about the limits that a seller can place on their product after it has been sold. Did I buy it or not? Do I own it or not? Do they get to tell me what I can do with it, or not?
There are all sorts of licensing agreements that claim you can't resell the software. I don't think there is a currently a clear consensus regarding whether software is licensed or sold, but most of these licenses are just attempts to defraud consumers of their rights to use or resell the product they have purchased.
Macs and OSX are related.
They are related in the same way that Dells and Windows XP are related. At least, I'm guessing that's the argument that Psystar would use. Namely, there's no reason that the purchase (and use) of one should depend upon the purchase of the other.
Macs are being sold both together and separately, as is the case with both of my prior examples.
This is the problem - OS X is sold separately from Macs, but Apple claims that you cannot use OS X separately from a Mac.
Didn't you just say their legal problem was because they were selling them together?
I said that their problem was that they are selling X and Y separately, but claiming that in order to legally use X, you must have bought Y.
As long as you're not a monopoly, it's perfectly legal for you to engage in anticompetitive behavior, as long as you're complying with all of the other normal business regulations.
Some of those very regulations regulate against anticompetitive behavior, e.g., tying. For an example, see the Clayton Antitrust Act.
Tying only applies when the products are non-related (which excludes both your razor and Playstation examples) and when they are being sold together (which also excludes both your examples - they are sold together, but not exclusively, you can purchase both razor blades and controllers separately).
Wikipedia gives the hypothetical example of Bic trying to tie the sale of pens to lighters - they're unrelated, so it doesn't make any sense. Also according to WP, tying by itself can be illegal, even without a monopoly (that makes sense to me - why would you want to wait to claim tying until a company became a monopoly).
Seems to me that the Apple case is even further complicated by the fact that they are selling the products separately (at least, you can purchase OS X without a computer - forget about the licensing issues for the moment). So Apple is selling OS X, but making the right to use it conditional upon the purchase of a computer from Apple.
Prima facie, I can see how that could be argued to be a de facto form of tying. Furthermore, the method Apple uses to enforce the condition is the software license, which is of questionable legality in the first place.
I don't think the argument is that Apple is a monopoly, but rather that they're engaging in anticompetitive behavior - tying the purchase of one product (the OS) to another (the computer).
I don't see how Apple could ever be compelled to provide support on any hardware it doesn't deem acceptable. If they were to lose, maybe the outcome will be that if you sell an OS, you don't have the right to restrict its use to particular hardware.
I'd tell them to shove it and get a warrant. Especially if they used quotes around the word terrorist.
And I don't even have the benefit of permanent, in-house legal counsel, to which any government requests were almost certainly referred!
Of course they're not obligated to continue offering a service (at least probably not in this case - there are some services companies are required to offer in exchange for the right to do business - think 911, or whatever the emergency number in your area is).
On the other hand, if they're going to be jerks towards their customers, people are also not obligated to continue patronizing them.